If a letter you mailed came back — or your loved one says they got a blurry photocopy instead of your card — you've run into the biggest change in prison mail in decades. As of early 2026, roughly 78% of the 1.2 million people in US prisons can no longer receive physical mail directly. Letters are scanned or photocopied, and the original often never reaches the person you wrote to. Here's what changed, who scans mail in each state, and how to make sure your words still get through.
What actually changed
For most of American history, a letter you mailed to a prison was inspected and then handed to the person it was addressed to. That's now the exception. A review by Prison Legal News in early 2026 found that at least 78% of state and federal prisoners are barred from directly receiving physical mail, and a follow-up review of the 250 largest jail systems found almost 62% of big jails have banned physical mail too (legal mail excepted).
Instead, one of three things happens to your letter:
- It's mailed to a scanning vendor — often a PO box in a different state — which scans it and delivers a digital copy to a tablet or kiosk inside the facility.
- It's scanned or photocopied by facility staff, and your loved one receives the copy, not the original.
- It's rejected and returned if it was sent to the old address, exceeds page limits, or breaks a formatting rule you had no way of knowing about.
In most scanning systems the original letter is stored briefly and then destroyed. That matters emotionally as much as practically: a child's drawing, a pressed flower, a perfumed page — none of it arrives. What arrives is an image.
Why facilities say they're doing it
The stated reason is drug interdiction — paper soaked in synthetic substances is a real smuggling method, and mailrooms are hard to staff. Corrections departments argue scanning removes the risk entirely. Critics, including the Prison Policy Initiative, point out that drugs mostly enter facilities through other channels and that overdose rates haven't fallen in systems that adopted scanning, while family connection — one of the strongest predictors of a successful release — measurably suffers. Wherever you land on that debate, the practical reality for families is the same: the rules around mail are stricter, more centralized, and easier to trip over than ever.
Who scans your loved one's mail, state by state
Most scanning is outsourced to a handful of companies — several of them names you may already know from phone and money services:
- Securus / JPay — the biggest player, scanning for about a fifth of US prisoners: North Dakota (since 2021), Missouri (2022), New Mexico (2022), Texas (2023), Oklahoma (2024), and Arkansas and Arizona (2025).
- Smart Communications — scans for Florida's state system (since 2022), about 11% of US prisoners on its own.
- TextBehind — Nebraska, Wisconsin (2021), West Virginia (2023), Minnesota and Montana (2024), North Carolina and Tennessee (2025).
- ViaPath — Ohio. Pigeonly — Delaware, Iowa, New Jersey, Wyoming. ICS — Alabama.
- Staff photocopying — about 13 more states plus most federal facilities copy mail in-house rather than using a vendor.
Only fifteen jurisdictions still deliver ordinary physical mail to people in their state prisons: Washington, D.C. plus California, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawai'i, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, and Washington state. County jails set their own rules, so even in those states the local jail may scan.
The practical takeaway: the mailing address you used last year may simply be wrong now. In scanning states, letters go to the vendor's processing center — for example, mail for a Texas or Missouri state prisoner routes through a Securus/JPay digital mail center, and Florida DOC mail goes to Smart Communications — not to the prison itself. Always check the facility's current instructions on its page in our directory or the DOC's website before you send.
What about federal prisons?
The federal Bureau of Prisons has not adopted system-wide scanning — most BOP facilities photocopy general mail in-house, and minimum-security camps still hand out physical mail. But that could change: the BOP SCAN Mail Act (S.1295 / H.R.1046) pending in Congress would authorize mail scanning across all federal facilities. If your loved one is in federal custody, watch for announcements — and note that federal electronic messaging already runs through CorrLinks, which is often the fastest way to reach someone in the BOP regardless of what happens to paper mail.
The new rules that get letters rejected
Scanning vendors are stricter — and more automated — than a human mailroom. The most common tripwires we see:
- Wrong address. Sending to the facility instead of the vendor's processing address (or vice versa). This is now the #1 cause of returned mail.
- Page limits. Many vendors cap letters at a set page count and reject the whole envelope when it's over.
- Writing on both sides of the page — some systems reject two-sided letters because they scan poorly.
- Missing inmate ID or return address — automated intake can't route a letter it can't match to a person. Confirm both with an inmate search first.
- Anything physical: glitter, stickers, lipstick, perfume, tape, cash, stamps, blank paper, and usually greeting cards with layers or sound chips.
- Polaroids and oversized photos — standard prints only, within the facility's per-envelope count.
Our guide to addressing mail to an inmate covers the envelope format line by line, and how to write a letter to an inmate covers content rules that apply whether the letter is scanned or not.
How to make sure your letter gets through in 2026
- Confirm the facility and ID number first with an inmate search — transfers change everything, including which vendor scans the mail.
- Look up the current mailing instructions for that specific facility — the processing address, page limit, and photo count. Facility pages in our directory include mailing guidance for major facilities.
- Write single-sided, in dark ink, on plain white paper, and number your pages.
- Don't send originals you can't lose — keepsakes, documents, one-of-a-kind photos. Assume the original will be destroyed after scanning.
- Expect a delay. Vendor processing adds days. If timing matters (a birthday, a court date), send earlier than feels necessary.
When electronic messaging is simply the better option
Here's the irony of mail scanning: once everything arrives as a digital image on a tablet anyway, a paid e-message often gets there faster than a stamped letter — sometimes the same day. Depending on the facility's contract, that means JPay or Securus eMessaging, ViaPath's GettingOut, or CorrLinks in the federal system. Our inmate service provider directory breaks down which company serves which system and what messages cost. A physical letter still carries weight — many people reread paper copies until they fall apart — but for time-sensitive news, electronic is now usually the reliable channel.
The easy way: we track the rules so you don't have to
Keeping up with which of fifty-plus systems scans mail, where the processing center is this year, and how many pages are allowed is exactly the problem our send letters service solves. You write the letter or upload photos; we format everything to the destination facility's current rules — correct processing address included — then print, add postage, and mail it. If the rules change, we change with them, so your letter doesn't bounce while you learn the new system by trial and error.
Quick checklist
- Confirm facility + inmate ID with a fresh search
- Find the current mailing/processing address for that facility
- Single-sided pages, within the page limit, standard photos only
- Nothing physical or decorative in the envelope; keep originals at home
- Time-sensitive? Use e-messaging or send extra early